Coriander is one of the most popular spices in the world, and its greens are called cilantro or cilantro. Interestingly, cilantro leaves no one indifferent. Some people adore it and are happy to use it in any salads and sandwiches, and they love Borodino bread for the special flavor of coriander seeds. Others, referring to the smell that evokes associations with forest bugs, hate coriander and flatly refuse to approach bunches of cilantro even in the market, let alone plant it in their garden.

Watermelon and summer are inseparable concepts. However, not in every area you will find melons. And all because this African plant takes up a lot of space, is quite demanding on both heat and the sun, and also on competent watering. But still, watermelon is so loved that today not only southerners, but much more northern summer residents have learned to grow it. It turns out that you can find an approach to such a capricious plant, and if you want, you can get a decent harvest.

You can cook red gooseberry jam in 10 minutes. However, it should be borne in mind that this is the time required for cooking jam without preparing berries. It takes a lot of time to harvest and prepare berries for processing. Cruel thorns discourage any desire to harvest, but you still have to cut off your noses and tails. But the result is worth it, the jam turns out to be excellent, one of the most fragrant, in my opinion, and the taste is such that it is impossible to tear yourself away from the jar.

Monsters, anthuriums, caladiums, dieffenbachia ... Representatives of the Aroid family are considered one of the most popular categories of indoor plants. And not the last factor of their wide distribution is diversity. Aroids are represented by aquatic plants, epiphytes, semi-epiphytes, tuberous and vines. But despite such a diversity, because of which it is sometimes difficult to guess the relationship of plants, aroids are very similar to each other and require the same care.

Salad "Donskoy" for the winter - a savory appetizer of fresh vegetables in a sweet and sour marinade with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. In the original recipe, the vinegar is plain or apple, but with a combination of wine vinegar and light Balsamico, it turns out much tastier. Salad can be prepared without sterilization - bring the vegetables to a boil, put them in sterile jars and wrap them warmly. You can also pasteurize blanks at a temperature of 85 degrees, then cool quickly.

The main collected mushrooms: porcini, boletus, boletus, chanterelles, boletus, mossiness mushrooms, russula, milk mushrooms, volnushki, saffron mushrooms, honey mushrooms. Other mushrooms are collected depending on the region. And their name (other mushrooms) is legion. As well as mushroom pickers, which are becoming more and more every year. Therefore, there may not be enough for all known mushrooms. And I know for sure that among the little-known come across very worthy representatives. I will tell you about little-known, but tasty and healthy mushrooms in this article.

The word "ampel" comes from the German word "ampel", meaning a hanging container for flowers. Fashion for hanging flower beds came to us from Europe. And today it is very difficult to imagine a garden where at least one hanging basket was not found. In response to the growing popularity of container floriculture, a large number of ampelous plants have appeared on sale, whose shoots easily fall outside the pots. Let's talk about those that are valued for their beautiful flowers.

Apricots in syrup - fragrant apricot compote with cardamom from peeled fruits. These are very useful preparations for the winter - bright and beautiful halves of canned apricots can be used to make fruit salads, desserts or decorate cakes and pastries. There are many varieties of apricots, for this recipe I advise you to choose ripe, but not overripe fruits, from which it is easy to get a stone so that the peeled slices retain the correct shape.

Today, in pharmacies, you can buy a lot of all kinds of medical preparations of general strengthening, tonic action, which are used for colds. Despite this, I always harvest nettles and St. John's wort for the winter on my own, as I consider them indispensable medicinal herbs for the prevention and treatment of colds and many other diseases. What exactly these plants are valuable for, how and when to collect, dry, store and prepare healing infusions, I will tell in the article.

Among species orchids, phalaenopsis are real Spartans. And one of the most hardy species is the four-shield phalaenopsis, or Tetraspis. He is content with minimal care, is not capricious at all, easily adapts. And, unfortunately, almost completely disappeared from the windowsills. Varietal hybrids with their spectacular flowering are found at every step, but you will have to hunt for each specific specimen. But if you like the exotic, then Phalaenopsis tetraspis is worth it.

Boiled chicken stew with vegetables is a delicious hot dish that is very easy to prepare from available ingredients. Both adults and children will like this dish, it can also be included in a not very strict diet menu when you need to eat something hearty, while not fried and not greasy. The recipe for stewed boiled chicken can be categorized as "healthy recipes"! Legs or thighs are ideal for cooking, and the breast fillet will turn out dry, it is better to make cutlets out of it.

I fell in love with roses fifteen years ago. My first roses often upset me: either with multi-colored spots on the leaves, or with a white powdery coating of powdery mildew, or with some other nuisance. What I just didn’t do to treat rose bushes and prevent diseases ... For the last five years, fungal diseases in my area have happened only twice and did not have time to cause any harm to the rose garden. I will share the secrets of preventing a fungal infection in a rose garden.

Fragrant fragrant apricots with delicate velvety skin and pulp melting in the mouth are loved by adults and children. They make excellent jam, marmalade, dried fruits and juices. Not surprisingly, apricot trees are grown in almost every garden in regions with suitable climates. In this article we will tell you which varieties of apricot are best suited for central Russia. In addition, the material will discuss how to properly care for the plant.

Puff pies with sorrel from ready-made yeast-free puff pastry - crispy, ruddy, piping hot, and on your table. You don’t need a lot of sorrel for the filling, you can even mix it with fresh spinach, it will be delicious! Sorrel adds sourness to the traditional egg and onion filling for puff pastries. Remove puff pastry from the freezer 30 minutes before cooking and leave at room temperature so that it thaws a little and becomes pliable.

Among the huge community of indoor representatives of the Aroid family, the syngonium is the only plant that cannot boast of an increase in popularity in the last decade. Everyone seems to have forgotten about this vine. Perhaps due to the rather capricious nature of syngoniums or their similarity with many large-leaved houseplants. But not a single indoor liana can boast of such variability. This is one of the most modest vines, but non-standard.

Gray-black slug (lat. Limax cinereoniger) is considered the largest on our planet. The length of his slippery body sometimes reaches 30 cm, which is a record figure for all his relatives. This representative of the order of lung snails is found almost throughout Europe, with the exception of only the most northern and coldest parts of it.

The gray-black slug is found in Germany, Great Britain and Ireland, where this species is listed in the Red Book. In addition, it can be seen in the Baltic countries, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and South Karelia. It also lives throughout the European part of the Russian Federation, and in the Moscow, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Kirov regions, it is even under state protection.

This is a very rare species of slugs, which is found only in single specimens. It prefers moist wooded areas and parks with good grass cover. During the day, it hides in the hollows of trees, under snags, deadwood and stones, and at night it crawls out of hiding to eat something tasty, of course, from its point of view. He eats the green parts of plants very reluctantly: he would like some kind of lichen or a piece of moss, and even better a bigger fungus.

That is why the biggest enemies of gray-black slugs can be considered insidious mushroom pickers who do not leave their favorite delicacy to the poor fellows. And then there is deforestation and, as a result, a reduction in the number of mosses and lichens, which actually dooms slugs to starvation. Unfortunately, no protective measures are taken to preserve the number of slugs. And in vain, because these hard workers are one of the most valuable forest biotopes, although they develop a speed of only a couple of centimeters per hour.

And what a beauty they look! They have a slender, tapering, mobile body with rough and durable wrinkled skin, which is somewhat reminiscent of the scaly cover of a snake. Despite the name, representatives of the species can have the most diverse colors - even white individuals are found among them. Juveniles are easily recognizable by their brown coloration, which may remain or change over time to any other. The mucus of individuals of any age is transparent or light yellow.

The mantle of the bluish-black slug is one-color, its length covers two-fifths of the body. It is all dotted with concentric wrinkles, and its front edge does not adhere to the back. There are black dots on the tentacles. The breathing hole is located in the back of the right half of the mantle.

In the first year after birth, gray-black slugs grow rapidly, but do not leave offspring. In the second year at the beginning and middle of summer, they diligently lay their eggs, the whole process takes about two months. Like all lung snails, they are hermaphrodites, but still prefer to find a partner for mating.

To do this, a snail ready for reproduction follows the trail of an individual of its own species, which signals its readiness with the help of a special secret secreted into the mucus. It is interesting that before the action itself there is usually a love game, during which the partners excite and cheer each other up. Tears do not have a larval stage, and a ready-made individual emerges from the laid egg, which differs from the adult only in its size. Its life expectancy will be about three years.

Let's first look at the portrait of a slug, which is familiar to all gardeners. Here he is, a naked freak, wet, nasty .... If chickens could speak, then their words would sound like this: “Here he is, handsome, naked, tasty.” Mother Nature would have tenderly uttered these words: “How beautiful you are, little cub. How I need you."

Number 1 - brown arion, number 2 - striped arion. Striped is a pest.

Arion brown. While "sleeping" - a lump, and crawled - 80 millimeters of growth appeared from somewhere. The main place for a comfortable life is coniferous, deciduous or mixed forests. Sometimes they are seen in old parks or cemeteries. He does not like sunlight, therefore he crawls out to feed in the twilight-dark hours of the day. Mushroom pickers see only traces of feasts - the cavities on the hats are oiled and mushrooms. And how the slug feasts on dead roots, leaves or dead small animals, only zoologists have observed. In our Altai Territory, it is found in Eastern Siberia, in the Amur River basin and Primorsky Territory, only the color instead of brown is more of a single-color black.

Woe to those gardeners and gardeners who wanted to have not just a plot for growing vegetables and apple trees, but a beautiful place on the edge of the forest under the shade of lonely pines for a beautiful cottage with a production bias in the form of growing garden products - the slug harms the gardens and fields located next to the forest. Yes, and how not to harm, because everything is laid out in the beds, here are the most delicate lettuce leaves, and here is the most delicious cabbage.

Arion striped. A close relative of brown, it is lighter in color, it is rather ashy with a slight admixture of yellowness or or creme brulee. This pest prefers to live in cultivated biotopes - in gardens, fields, parks and, of course, in vegetable gardens. It is good that he does not live in all regions, but in the north-west of our country and in its central regions.

Slug black. A very long slug, even a chicken will be afraid to peck, up to 20 centimeters in length its body can stretch when moving. It is good that he feeds on lichens and mushrooms. Range: Karelia, Baltic States, Belarus, west and center of Russia, and areas located east of Novgorod.

Number 1 - large slug, number 2 - field slug, number 3 - black slug, number 4 - smooth slug.

The slug is big. Less black, and that's a joy, because the length of the body can be 130 millimeters, and this is 13 centimeters. But it’s still unpleasant when such living creatures settle in a greenhouse, garden or vegetable garden. He also loves vegetable stores, of course, because the entire range of delicious food is collected in one place, there is no need to spend energy looking for it. Range: northwestern and central regions of Russia.

Malacolimax gentle. Gentle for the gardener, because it eats mushrooms and lichens.

Malacolimax gentle.

Field slug. Not big, only 40 millimeters when stretched. This forest and darkness are not needed, he loves ditches, swamps, meadows, does not shy away from forest edges. The main, most important thing is that he does not like cultivated land. You can save yourself from it by constant digging of the soil in the beds. The soil will lose fertility. What's better? To know...

Slug is smooth. Less field slug. He loves swamps, damp meadows, the banks of overgrown reservoirs. He is not afraid of water, it does not cost him anything to feed on a leaf under water. He is not afraid of the cold.

Slug mesh.

Do not believe everything that is written. For example, that slugs love beer. Maybe they love, but who tested them for the ability to die from alcohol intoxication? Or ashes… What kind of ash, cigarette or wood ash? The first is too little, and the second will need no less. After all, you will have to process the entire area, every square centimeter.

Pine needles will not help, as well as spruce needles. Look above, it says that some slugs love coniferous forests, and there are so many of these needles that you won’t find a haystack among them.

Chemical methods of protection against slugs are ineffective. When a poisonous substance gets on the mucus, the animal simply shakes off the sticky clothes and immediately puts on a new, no less sticky one.

Gardeners believe that ground red hot pepper is dangerous. But this is a very costly method.

Can be chemically destroyed. Metaldehyde will help, it is recommended to scatter 40 grams per square meter. This is also expensive, given that the treatment, that is, the sprinkling of the earth, is not a one-time procedure, but multiple, because every rain washes away all traces. At the same time, it is necessary to pollute the soil with poison, how will the soil inhabitants, who create fertility, react to this?

You can sprinkle with dolomite flour or slaked lime, also not God knows how good, but this is the most economically viable method, although treatments should be carried out after each rain.

There is a generally accepted opinion that you need to sprinkle the paths and around the beds. Don't believe! What, harmful Velcro only live under the tracks? And crawl out to the surface only above the tracks? Therefore, it is recommended to sprinkle around the beds with a path around the perimeter. These animals can hide from the sun and wind in the place where they are impatient!

The beds should be well ventilated, they should not have grass or other shelters during the dangerous period for plants. The lower leaves should be removed so that they do not touch the ground and do not serve as bridges. There should not be many plants in the garden; it is much more difficult to find a pest in the jungle thickets, and it is more comfortable for him.

It is proposed to pollinate the soil with superphosphate. For me, this is not an acceptable method, I have already switched to natural farming, I do not need chemical fertilizers.

Another funny recommendation is to collect slugs in a jar after rain during the day. This can be recommended by someone who has not collected slugs himself. If there can be a million individuals per hectare of cultivated area, as in Great Britain, what percentage of this number will be three dozen specimens that accidentally caught your eye. The search for slugs for subsequent destruction is meaningless.

If you are to pour poison, then you need to do it in such a way as to protect the plant, and not the planting or sowing area - each plant. These scoundrels like to be found in the soil layer near the stems of plants. So it is necessary to loosen the bed, especially deeply with the soil tilted away from the stem. So all the slugs will be on the surface, they are clearly visible. Take a pruner and cut each one, believe me, slugs do not have the ability to regenerate tissues. Then spud the stalk with the same soil with the remains of the pest and sprinkle lime on top. This is the most effective way to fight, caution does not hurt - lime should not get on the plant itself, otherwise burns and ...

Reproduction of slugs or why there are no slugs in spring.

They are gentle, soft-bodied creatures, they cannot get deep into the soil, like earthworms or Colorado beetles. Although eggs are laid far enough from the soil surface, they are hidden from drying out at a depth of 8 centimeters.

Although they hide under the remnants of grass, heaps of garbage, they all die in frosts. The eggs remain to winter. If mom-dad-slug found a suitable place for masonry, then little babies will hatch from eggs, something like caviar, in spring on warm days. They will appear to us as adults in mid-July. Such reproduction of slugs was invented by nature.

Why wait for the slugs to attack? It can be prevented by destroying baby slugs or teenagers in time.

Who eats slugs or nature to help us.

Moreover, laying hens should not be allowed to peck at them, because hens will drastically reduce the supply of eggs for dinner.

Hedgehogs, moles, starlings, jackdaws and rooks eat slugs, frogs do not refuse them. Here there is material for thought, who is better for the garden, the mole, which will devour the slug and destroy all the plants, or the hedgehog, who himself is not averse to feasting on our green vegetables?

Lizards, salamanders and snakes fall away immediately. There were ground beetles, toads and frogs - they must be taken as assistants and companions, conditions for reproduction and life must be created.

Tell your friends gardeners and gardeners about ways to protect vegetable crops from a pest that eats everything in summer cottages.

Slugs and their fight

Slugs

Familiar aliens

If the slugs were about the size of a person, then they could well correspond to the ideas we have about aliens thanks to science fiction writers. After all, it turns out that they are not like people. This is what slugs look like. Let's start with the fact that they do not have a head, but they do have a "face". On this so-called "face" we first notice two long tentacles, which we call horns. At the ends of the horns are the eyes and organs of smell. The eyes are rather primitive, it is believed that slugs do not distinguish the contours of objects, but only determine the degree of illumination. Therefore, if it seems to you that the slug that is in front of you has directed its horns in your direction, this does not mean that it is looking at you, it is sniffing you.

On their "face" you can see a mouth. This is a very important organ for slugs because food is their main occupation. There are two smaller tentacles near the mouth, and they also have organs of smell (it is very thin in them and plays a big role in their life) and taste.

Slugs are real gourmets and do not absorb all food, although they are polyphagous pests. It is estimated that about 150 plant species can serve as food for them. But if you lay out all 150 species in front of them, they will use their organs of smell and taste, sniff and taste all 150, choose two or three of them, and maybe even one most suitable, and only then will they start eating.

Especially willingly they eat cabbage, lettuce and strawberries. Bulky cavities are eaten away in potato tubers and carrot roots. Onions, garlic and sorrel do not attract them at all. Slugs cause great harm to seedlings and young seedlings. Sometimes you wonder why cucumber, pumpkin, or bean sprouts take so long to germinate. And they cannot ascend, because they have become the prey of slugs. Most often, seedlings suffer from them under adverse conditions that slow down germination.

Although slugs prefer tender young leaves, their mouthparts are also well adapted to cope with fairly roughage. In the oral cavity there is a hard jaw with a sharp edge, with which the slug scrapes tissue from the leaf, and a thick tongue covered with hard sharp protrusions is a real grater.

Immediately after the "face" is the neck, and then the back. On the neck is the genital opening, and on the side are the respiratory and excretory openings. The entire lower body of a slug is called a leg. Its lower side is covered with a denser skin, and on the front of this leg, just below the mouth, there is a wide narrow gap - this is the opening of the leg gland. When the slug crawls, mucus is constantly secreted from it and paves the path for the delicate sensitive body, smoothing out the roughness of the surface. With the help of this viscous sticky mucus, you can also move along vertical surfaces. The rest of the body, called the back, contains all the internal organs.

The main thing is not to overheat.

The skin of slugs is very thin and covered with a large number of grooves. Of these, mucus is also constantly secreted, which should keep the skin moist. Although slugs have primitive lungs, two-thirds of their respiration takes place through moist skin. In addition, mucus reduces body temperature and protects against overheating.

The body of a slug is 85-90% water. It is as if inflated with water, thanks to which the body and all internal organs maintain their shape and location.

Therefore, slugs do their best to prevent even a slight drying of the body and usually prefer to be in cool places where the surface of the earth is always slightly damp. In contact with wet ground, their bodies absorb water and maintain the water balance at a constant level. They cannot stand drought and when the upper layers of the soil dry up, they try to dig deeper, moving along the passages and minks dug by animals more adapted to underground life. Cases are described when slugs were found at a depth of up to one meter.

They don't like heat or cold

Temperature determines a lot in the life of slugs. For their active life, a rather narrow interval is optimal - 15-19 °. At a temperature of 24-25 ° they feel uncomfortable and stop eating, and at a higher temperature they die. In the morning, when the sun rises and the air begins to warm up, they must urgently seek shelter. And here they are rescued by the sixth or seventh sense, which tells them in which direction to move - the sense of a gradient of humidity and temperature. It is this that brings them to a damp and cool shelter. In the evening, it also suggests that you can leave it and go in search of food. Slugs crawl out of their shelters not only in the evenings, but also during the day after rain.

circle of life

Under favorable conditions, the development of embryos in eggs occurs quite quickly, and after 11-13 days, newborn slugs emerge from them. At first they are so weak that they cannot eat plant foods and feed on humus, which is why adults prefer to live at such a time on fertile rich soils.

When young slugs get stronger and can eat plants, they begin to grow and develop rapidly. The law of nature embedded in them makes them hurry. After all, by the end of summer they should become mature and have time to lay eggs. However, their development is highly dependent on the weather. If it is hot and dry, they may not have time to lay their eggs, and then they will have to spend the winter and do their duty next year in the spring. If, on the contrary, it is humid and cool, then their development is so accelerated that by the autumn the second generation of slugs has time to hatch.

In our middle lane, annual slugs predominate. Among them, the most common species is the net slug. It got this name because of its color: on a light background, there are many dark spots that form, as it were, a grid. Annual slugs live, as a rule, 5 months from spring to autumn. After laying eggs, they die.

mating dances

Another feature of slugs is that they are hermaphrodites, that is, they contain both male and female organs. However, they do not mature at the same time. First outweighs the masculine, then comes the turn of the feminine. Some inconvenience is that slugs cannot fertilize themselves; in order to continue the race, they have to exchange sperm. This happens during the male period of life. At this time, each slug is looking for a suitable partner by smell. When he finds it, a kind of mating dance begins. First, two slugs synchronously move in a circle against each other, gradually approaching. Finally, their bodies are intertwined, and there is an exchange of sperm. Then comes the female period, and 10-11 days after fertilization, the slugs lay eggs, trying to hide them in damp, cool shelters. Egg laying occurs for quite a long time - a month or more, depending on the weather, 30-50 eggs at a time. And just one slug can lay up to 500 eggs.

Why do they love the night

Under natural conditions, slugs always choose habitats with a dense vegetation cover, under the canopy of which a damp, cool atmosphere reigns. Usually these are meadows, deciduous forests, river banks. There, their number, in accordance with the natural law of equilibrium, is maintained at a constant level. They move to garden beds only if something very attractive to them is planted there, for example, cabbage or lettuce. For the sake of delicious food, slugs are ready to endure all sorts of hardships. Compared to life in the meadow, life in the garden is not sugar at all, it is much more troublesome and full of dangers. Frequent loosening destroys natural shelters and dries out the soil. Here slugs are rescued by their extraordinary sensitivity. In addition to the organs of smell and taste, they have a sense of the gradient of humidity and temperature, which helps them to exist in the extreme conditions of a garden bed, devoid of dense vegetation, open to the hot rays of the sun. The nocturnal lifestyle of slugs is not at all explained by the fact that they love darkness (light, apparently, plays a small role in their life), but by the fact that at night the air becomes more humid and cool.

Usually the life cycle of slugs is like this. In the spring, young slugs begin to hatch from the overwintered eggs. The development of the embryo in the eggs begins when the soil temperature reaches 5°C, but young slugs, very sensitive to negative temperatures, come to the surface only at the beginning of June, when the danger of frost has passed. At the end of summer they lay eggs and die. Eggs, on the other hand, tolerate negative temperatures much better than adult slugs. They withstand freezing down to -11°, and slugs die at -3-4°. This is the standard cycle, but it can be interrupted by the weather, slowed down or accelerated. Therefore, sometimes both adult slugs, which did not have time to lay their eggs, and young slugs of the second generation, which did not have time to mature before winter, overwinter.

Slugs are most harmful in the second half of summer, when they become adults and require a lot of food to ensure the maturation of a large number of eggs in their bodies. Moreover, the eggs of slugs do not ripen in the stomach, but in the back. They don't have a belly at all.

This is how these creatures live, unusually vulnerable, with soft, unprotected bodies, having only smell and taste of our usual senses, and yet prospering. Their offspring does not dry out, but multiplies, and the almighty man - the conqueror of space - breaks his head and does not know how to protect beds with cabbage and strawberries from them.

With an eye on the weather

Sometimes the weather helps us in the fight against slugs. In harsh winters with little snow, when the soil freezes heavily, slugs and partly their eggs, wintering in the uppermost soil layer (0-3 cm), die. In this case, the next summer, the number of slugs is much less than usual. Spring drought is also unfavorable for them, which leads to mass death of eggs and juveniles. But warm rainy autumn and rainy spring promise a real invasion of slugs.

The number of slugs is determined by three critical periods for them: the first - the end of summer, the beginning of autumn - the period of oviposition; the second is wintering; the third is spring, when juveniles hatch. The main critical conditions in the first and third periods are humidity and temperature, in the second - the height of the snow cover and soil freezing. The most effective way to deal with slugs is chemical - baits poisoned with metaldehyde. But our task is to consider alternative methods suitable for use in ecologically oriented farms.

Ecological methods of struggle

The main difficulty. One of the main challenges in developing non-chemical methods of slugs control is the great diversity of their species composition. In each individual place, you can find up to 10 species. For the most part, these are annual slugs related to the reticulated slug. In appearance, they are quite difficult to distinguish, since the color can change depending on external conditions. Specialists determine the species by the location of the internal organs, that is, by performing an autopsy. Despite the outward similarity, slugs belonging to different species differ greatly in behavior and food preferences. Behavior can be attributed to the speed of movement. One of the most “fast-moving” is the net slug. In one of the experiments, he covered a distance of 70 cm in 4 days, during the other, the length of the day's journey was about 80 m. This means that if you cleared your garden of slugs, then from nearby meadows or other uncultivated lands, the so-called reservations, where slugs always live, their relatives will soon come to you. They will be attracted by the smell, which they are able to capture with the help of their antenna horns at fairly large distances. Obviously, garden plants as a source of food for slugs are preferable to wild ones. Therefore, they uncontrollably crawl on their scent from their native habitats.

Traps. Differences in food preferences have a big impact on the effectiveness of traps. Slugs are a problem not only for gardens, but also for a number of field crops. Abroad, many experiments have been carried out to identify the most attractive and most repulsive plants. It was then that a significant difference was established between the species of slugs. True, they all ate cabbage, lettuce and strawberries with great pleasure. There was no difference in this respect. The challenge was to find something more palatable for them that could distract them from the cultivated plants or lure them into a trap.

During the experiments, the reaction of different types of slugs to different baits differed several times. Even the most attractive bait did not collect more than half of the slugs of one species.

Beer traps are considered very effective against slugs. However, their effectiveness largely depends on the quality of the beer and on the addiction to it of those types of slugs that live in your garden. Here for gardeners opens up a wide scope for experimentation. Namely, to test different types of beer in practice. Maybe you'll get lucky and find a beer that the slugs will like. Then your life will be a little easier. Slugs are known to love sweets, so the appeal of beer traps can be increased by adding some sweetened water to the beer.

The simplest traps such as boards or pieces of burlap are very popular, under which slugs clog to escape the sun. During the day they are removed from there and destroyed.

We're trying to scare it off. Another direction of experimental work is the search for plants that repel slugs, and the identification of the reasons for the attractiveness and unattractiveness of different plant species. Slugs have been found to avoid plants containing essential oils, phenols, alkaloids, flavonoids, and bitter substances. For example, they refused to eat medicinal sage, thyme, geranium, oregano, watercress, white clover, basil. However, the treatment of lettuce with extracts of these plants did not give a positive result. The reason is the rapid evaporation of essential oils. But when their favorite salad forms a flower arrow and becomes bitter, they lose all interest in it.

In one of the experiments, they went for such a cunning trick. The cumin seed extract was not treated with plants, but with wood waste mulch that covers the ground. The mulch held the essential oils and prevented them from evaporating quickly. Slugs avoided crawling into such mulch, and if they crawled, they lost their appetite. This method is applicable, of course, only in small areas, for example, in one garden bed.

How to make life difficult for them. An important place in the fight against slugs is occupied by preventive measures, the purpose of which is to create unfavorable conditions for them, or, in other words, to make it difficult for them to exist. This does not mean that you will destroy all the slugs in your garden, but you will certainly significantly reduce their appetite and fertility.

The main thing is not to create a moist atmosphere for slugs that they love. To this end, the beds should be watered in the morning, and when the slugs crawl out of the shelter in the evening, the soil will be dry and hard.

In Germany and Switzerland, oilseed rape crops are severely affected by slugs. In one Swiss laboratory, researchers came up with an idea to distract slugs from rapeseed. It turned out that they are happy to eat dandelion, shepherd's purse, wood lice, cruciferous (with the exception of mustard). The experiments were carried out in laboratory conditions. During the first two days, the slugs ate almost all the plants offered to them, but then they switched to the most attractive food for them - rapeseed ... We use rapeseed as a green manure. Why not try using it as a distracting plant, by sowing, for example, on cabbage? The difficulty lies in the fact that slugs eat rapeseed seedlings as soon as they unfold a couple of leaves. Outsmarting the slugs is not easy. Maybe grow rapeseed somewhere inaccessible to slugs, collect young shoots there, put them in vessels with water and place them on a cabbage bed. Just scattering rapeseed on the ground is probably not enough.

Lettuce can be used instead of rapeseed to save cabbage. It is sown early in spring under a film, while the slugs have not yet left their shelters, and in mid-late May, lettuce seedlings are planted with cabbage seedlings. Slugs will happily feed on the more tender lettuce...

It is important to remember that if... Thickened plantings also create favorable conditions for the life of slugs. Under a dense canopy of leaves, they feel at ease - the hot rays of the sun do not penetrate there and a warm, humid atmosphere reigns there. On more sparse plantings, the soil between plants warms up and dries out - these are not the same conditions.

If you have a lot of slugs in some area by the autumn, then, naturally, they laid their eggs in the soil for wintering. It is easy to see this if you stir up the top layer of the earth, with the naked eye you can see there heaps of milky-white translucent balls with a diameter of 1-2 mm. Before the onset of frost, until the snow has fallen, you should turn over the entire earth in this area with a rake so that the eggs, and at the same time young wintering slugs, are on the surface. Then there is a chance that some part of them will die from frost.

Sometimes desperate gardeners are ready to water their land with anything to destroy the slugs hiding in it. But at the same time, one should not forget that the soil is also a living natural formation, and before you are going to poison the slugs, think about whether you will poison it too.

Dry and hard soil will spoil the slugs mood and appetite. In general, it is advisable to water not from a watering can, but under the root or through a plastic bottle dug into the ground with its neck down, with the bottom cut off, so that the topsoil remains dry.

The beds on which the plants most beloved by slugs - cabbage and lettuce - are planted, should not be covered with mulch. Mulch is a great hiding place for slugs, weather protection, and food. If the slugs are very annoying, then it is better to completely remove it from the garden. This measure is especially important on cold and wet soils. And you can apply such an insidious method - use dry and caustic material for mulching: wood waste, spruce needles, straw. A good result is a crushed eggshell.

Various caustic substances can also be used as an obstacle to slugs, which are poured in a strip around the beds or in a ring around the base of the stem (at a distance of at least 10 cm) or between rows. It can be mustard powder, freshly slaked finely ground lime (200-250 g per 10 sq. m.), finely ground ferrous sulfate powder (100 g per sq. m.), a mixture of ash and bleach 1: 1 (200-250 g per 10 sq. m.). Tobacco dust sprinkled around the plants, or even on the plants themselves, protects them from damage. There is evidence that slugs do not tolerate copper compounds. If a thick rope or a strip of dense fabric is soaked in a solution of copper sulfate, it will become an insurmountable barrier.

A good result is also given by a mechanical anti-snail barrier, following the example of those used by foreign gardeners. There it is sold ready-made, but you can make it yourself. This is a fence type of a metal corner, the upper edge of which hangs from the outside ...

Who else will help us. On gardeners' estates, as a rule, there are hedges that play the role of mini-reserves. Many birds, animals and insects live there, among which there are many enemies of slugs. These are hedgehogs, shrews, moles, toads, lizards, ground beetles.

They hunt slugs and birds. For example, rooks, thrushes, starlings. If you do not use pesticides and take care to attract these animals and birds to your site, they will help to cope with such unpleasant enemies of your beds as slugs.

N. Zhirmunskaya , candidate of biological sciences

(Novelties for the Garden No. 1, 2005)

Slugs and their fight

Of the terrestrial mollusks, naked slugs cause the main damage to garden plants. Their shell is underdeveloped (hidden by the mantle) or absent altogether. There are two pairs of tentacles on the head, the upper ones with eyes. The head smoothly passes into the trunk and leg. The skin is soft, moist, mucous. In the front part of the body there is a leg gland that secretes a quickly hardening sticky mucus that protects the delicate skin of the mollusk from drying out, overheating, damage, and predator attacks. On the same mucus they move. The presence of slugs on the site is easily detected precisely by the presence of its residues on the soil and plants. They breathe with a lung - a special section of the mantle, supplied with numerous blood vessels. Hermaphrodites, each individual has both male and female reproductive organs. They are very moisture-loving, live and breed only in low and damp places, shady and dense plantings, near forests and bushes. Dry places are avoided. They thrive especially in wet years. With the onset of adverse conditions, they crawl to more humid places. During drought, they are able to hide in the soil, sometimes at a depth of up to 1 m.

They feed mainly in the evening and at night, in the morning they hide in the soil, under leaves and other shelters. But in cloudy and rainy weather, they can eat during the day. They are illegible in food, they eat a variety of plants, but prefer more tender and juicy ones. Therefore, garden crops suffer in the first place. Potatoes, beets, carrots, rutabaga, both tops, and root crops and tubers are most harmful, not only in the soil, but also in storage. Cabbage, which is gnawed during the day, is especially badly damaged, hiding in heads of cabbage. They eat holes in strawberries. Onions, garlic, cucumbers, peas, lettuce, turnips, beans: buckwheat, sorrel, flax, and other crops are somewhat less damaged. Ornamental plants include calendula (marigold), nasturtium, dahlias, asters, and carnations.

On the leaves of plants, slugs gnaw through large holes with uneven edges, and on root crops they eat holes and stripes. They also eat flowers, buds, young shoots, roots. Their attack is especially detrimental to seedlings and seedlings. Of the weeds, burdock, dandelion, plantain, cruciferous are primarily eaten; less often sow thistle, wheatgrass, nettle, tartar. They also feed on decaying plant and animal remains, fungi, and lichens.

Although slugs are polyphagous, their different species still prefer different cultivated plants. So field and plowed ones primarily harm field crops and strawberries, agile - cereals, reticulated - field, garden, garden and berry crops, a large slug - damages vegetable plants and fruits, brown and arion - garden and garden plants, bordered - field and garden. The greatest damage to agricultural crops is usually caused by arable, net, agile and bordered slugs.

Slugs lay their eggs in the ground. From them, young individuals are hatched, outwardly very similar to adults. In plowed and reticulated slugs, only eggs hibernate, from which juveniles hatch at the end of May. And in the fringed, yellowish and agile one, wintering is mainly carried out by young individuals born in August - September, and partially by adults.

The fight against slugs is quite difficult. They are poisonous, so only rooks, jackdaws and starlings eat them from wild birds, and chickens and ducks from domestic birds. But the latter at the same time can greatly damage the vegetables growing on the beds. Most predatory insects are not eaten, with the exception of ground beetles. Partially eaten by moles, shrews, hedgehogs, lizards. But the first ones are pests themselves, and they are being fought, and the rest of the animals in the plots are found sporadically, or completely absent. They are partly eaten by frogs, but they still prefer insects, and they are usually located in the areas as a "passage", that is, temporarily. Toad slugs are most diligently destroyed.

Slugs are not afraid of chemicals, or the concentration of the latter must be very high, which is not harmless to humans, animals, beneficial insects, and the plants themselves.

Passive control measures - drainage of sites, creation of diversion ditches for water. Thinning and clarification of garden and horticultural crops (care). Weeding weeds, especially in early summer, since slugs on cultivated plants pass from them. Cleaning up dead plant residues.

ACTIVE CONTROL MEASURES

Capture and destruction of slugs on baits from pumpkin, watermelon and other vegetable peels and peelings, specially laid out or lightly buried in places convenient for this.

Catching on artificially laid out shelters, under which slugs hide for a day (from below) - pieces of polyethylene, linoleum, boards, etc. objects. During the day, they are picked up, turned over and cleaned off the slugs in soapy water.

Trapping in buried vessels with beer poured to the bottom, into which they gather, attracted by the smell, and drown.

Pollination of beds with slaked lime - 30 g per 1 m2, or its mixture with tobacco dust (1: 1) - 20 g per 1 m2.

Pollination of beds with mustard powder.

Spraying between rows with a solution of mustard - 100 g per 10 liters of water.

Processing is best done in the evening, and catching - in the morning or afternoon. All of the above methods of dealing with slugs help reduce their number on the site, but they do not fundamentally solve the problem.

The main enemies of slugs, as already mentioned, are toads. Take care and protect the toads! The most effective way to deal with slugs is to attract, or rather simply collect in the vicinity and bring toads to the site. You can just in the hands. It won't cause any warts. It's a myth, just a fantasy. And in vain many people (especially women) are afraid of these animals. Yes, indeed, they are ugly and poisonous, but this poisonousness is passive. You shouldn't eat them... Otherwise, they are completely harmless, you can safely take them in your hands. True, before eating, the latter should still be washed afterwards.

Toads can live quite far from water in summer. Their skin, unlike frogs (in order to know exactly who was brought), is dry and covered with warts and outgrowths containing, as already mentioned, a poisonous secret. The hind legs are much shorter than those of frogs, so the toads move from paw to paw, very slowly. They jump very rarely, and for a very short distance, no more than 20 cm, and only frightened by something.

These are very useful creatures, and since they themselves move slowly, they are forced to feed on inactive creatures. First of all, slugs, also caterpillars crawling on the ground and lower leaves of plants (mostly harmful), as well as earthworms. In the latter case, they are slightly harmful, but the benefits from them are much greater. They hunt at night, and in the morning they hide in some kind of shelter, usually the same thing. Therefore, in order to reduce the number of slugs to a harmless amount, you should collect all the toads you meet in the vicinity at the beginning of summer and take them to your site. And in order not to run away, dig shallow holes for each in shady places not used for planting (one digging with a shovel is enough) with a gentle entrance. Half cover them with planks, bricks, etc. to make a shelter. And put in each one of the collected toads. The latter should be at least 10-15 pieces. on the average garden plot (10-12 acres). And preferably more. Since, unlike frogs, toads move slowly, they live in the presence of shelter settled, in one place. Then, eating at night, if they do not allow to get rid of the slugs completely, then at least they will maintain their number at an almost harmless level. This way of dealing with slugs will be absolutely environmentally friendly. However, this method also has one serious drawback, in April - May, all toads from your site will inevitably go to the nearest suitable reservoir for breeding and will not return back. Therefore, in early June, the toads will have to be collected again and so every year.

V. Starostin , Ph.D. Sciences

To discourage slugs

Slugs and snails are common garden pests. On hot and dry days, these gastropods hide in the dark, damp and cool corners of the garden. They crawl out to hunt in the garden and vegetable garden at night, along with dew, and also in rainy weather during the day. Pests gnaw the leaves of garden plants, leave their sticky mucus on them and spoil the ripened crop.

Slugs are gastropods that lack an outer shell. Their body is covered with soft skin with numerous glands that abundantly secrete mucus. The wide lower part of the body serves as their “leg”, with the help of which they move slowly.

Every year in early June, slugs begin to cause significant damage to seedlings of vegetables and flower crops, strawberries, etc.

Then they move on to cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage. Even without observing sticky mollusks with our own eyes, we can easily guess their presence by characteristic irregularly shaped holes in the most tender and juicy parts of the leaves, especially cabbage and strawberries. At the same time, first of all, they damage the largest berries and eat the most tender leaves.

They are especially dangerous for young plants. But the harm from slugs is aggravated by the fact that they are carriers of fungal plant diseases, and primarily bacteriosis.

Slugs cause the greatest harm in the second half of summer, in wet years, mainly in lowland areas, on loamy and clay soil, on thickened crops, where the soil does not warm up enough.

In nature, slugs have a lot of enemies (frogs, toads, lizards, ground beetles, etc.), but gardeners ruthlessly exterminated this living creature on their plots. Slugs are hedgehogs' favorite food. But try to remember when you saw this most dedicated defender in your area.

Slugs are ubiquitous and multiply rapidly in rainy summers. In the spring, the female lays up to 500 eggs, and the young that emerge from them after two weeks eat everything.

In summer, they do not bypass the thickets of grass, where you can hide well from the sun's harmful rays. They feed at night, damaging not only the aerial part, but also the underground part of the plant. During the day, they hide under lumps of soil, under the leaves of plants, between the leaves of a head of cabbage. Their appearance is known by the traces left - silvery drying mucus.

Since it is quite difficult to deal with the invasion of slugs, it is easier to prevent it after all. First of all, it is necessary to create conditions unfavorable for pests and deprive them of their daytime shelter. This means that all excess boards and stones, heaps of weeded weeds must be removed from the site, the grass on paths and borders must be mowed, and especially wet areas must be dried.

When planting plants, try not to plant them too tightly. It is very important to periodically cut off the lower leaves of lettuce and cabbage, as well as loosen the soil, since mollusks can hide in cracks in the ground.

Together with the harvest, one must not forget to remove all plant debris from the site, including fallen leaves under the trees. Thus, you will deprive the slugs of shelter and food for the winter. Grass should also not be allowed to accumulate in nearby ditches and damp places.

Mechanical means of control involve the collection of pests by hand, as well as the installation of traps for them. It is most convenient to collect snails and slugs with tweezers.

Since pests prefer dark and damp places during the day, appropriate traps are prepared for them. For example, cabbage leaves, burlap, rags or boards moistened with fruit juice or beer are laid between the beds and on the paths. During the day, pests will crawl into traps, and in the evening they will only have to be collected. This should be done 5-6 days in a row.

In addition, such traps can also be organized - shallow containers are dug in at ground level, filled with strong saline or soapy water, and covered with burlap. Upon contact with soapy or salty liquid, the slugs die.

It is even better to use the most delicious food for slugs - lettuce leaves, large branches of dill, melon peels, fallen dahlia flowers, etc. Attracted by the smell, slugs will gather near them at night, and in the morning they can only be collected.

And this is news to many. A significant effect is the use of the desire of slugs to "eat" beer. Often in the periodical press advice is given to pour some beer into low jars and arrange it overnight on the site.

But it is much more effective to put fresh burdock leaves in a bowl of old beer for a short time, and spread them over the beds closer to night. By morning, all these leaves will be covered with slugs.

Effective double pollination of plants (especially cabbage) with an interval of 15 days with a mixture of tobacco dust and sifted wood ash, taken in equal proportions.

And after a hot sunny day, it is necessary to periodically sprinkle (or rather, pollinate) the soil around plants and paths with ash, crushed superphosphate, ground pepper, etc. with immediate loosening of the soil to a depth of 3-5 cm, since it is at this depth that pests hide during the day.

A mixture of sifted wood ash (0.5 liters), table salt (1 tablespoon), any ground pepper (1 tablespoon) and dry mustard (1 tablespoon) is best suited for this purpose.

This should be done late in the evening, when the slugs went “hunting”. After about an hour, this treatment is desirable to repeat. Crawling to rest after a night robbery, in contact with these substances, the slugs are burned, damaging the skin. On the same day in the evening, it is necessary to pollinate again with the same mixture through a gauze bag, but not the ground, but the plants themselves.

It is effective to spray those plants with a solution of vinegar in the evening, on the leaves of which large holes have appeared (0.25 cups of 9% vinegar per 10 liters of water). The same effect is given by a solution of ammonia (2 tablespoons per 10 liters of water).

In the presence of a large number of slugs in the potato area in the fall, it is necessary to loosen the soil twice here, because. at the same time, both adults and their eggs die.

The fact that garden snails and slugs have very soft bodies can also be used against them. To do this, it is enough to scatter dry porous material near the plants - crushed eggshells, shells or fine gravel. Since such a surface is unpleasant for mollusks, they are unlikely to get close to plants.

By the way, in this regard, pests really do not like lime and superphosphate, since these substances absorb mucus and moisture from their bodies, complicating movement. However, it should be noted that in rainy weather, the effectiveness of such a tool is reduced.

It is useful to mulch the beds with finely chopped spruce or pine needles (spruce branches) or simply lay out small spruce branches. In addition, coniferous needles can be scattered on the lower leaves of cabbage. Dried nettles have the same effect.

And a completely impenetrable barrier for slugs is a strip of coarse-grained river sand or crushed eggshells with sharp edges along the beds.

And, of course, if necessary, modern plant protection products against slugs and snails should be used - granules "Meta" and "Thunderstorm".

But they should not be scattered over the entire area, as is often recommended, because. it is a very strong poison. It is enough to put 3-4 granules of the drug around each stem. They will blur into a common spot, deadly for slugs. But you can use this drug no later than 3 weeks before harvesting.

And if slugs are wound up in a cellar or a vegetable store, then the places of their accumulation are watered with a solution of table salt at the rate of 250 g of salt per 1 glass of water.

And, perhaps, the most important thing. In no case should we forget that it is necessary to fight slugs constantly, because. they will still appear on your site from time to time.

V. A. Loiko